Druid builds
Though Druids are a hybrid class, the differences between builds of the same specialization tend to be fairly minor because of the great amount of must-have talents embedded inside each tree. The 3 trees are Balance, which improves the druid's ranged DPS, Feral, which improve the druid's animal forms, allowing him to Tank or Melee DPS effectively, and Restoration, which improves the druid's healing abilities. For the purpose of classification within this article, builds which have less than 41 points in any one talent tree have been classified as hybrid. Otherwise, the ordering within each section is in descending number of points in the primary talent tree. Each build has its advantages and disadvantages, and there is no "best" build within each tree except in cases where you have a firm idea of what you want your Druid to do. For example, a tanking build that puts points into Thick Hide is clearly superior to a build that dismisses the talent. Despite this, it is ultimately up to the individual decide which talent build is most suitable to their chosen play style. When raiding, opting for a more traditional, non-hybrid raid build is likely to be a necessity as it will allow you to maximize your contribution to the raid, whether your role is DPS, tank, or healer. Balance Balance druids specialize in offensive ranged spell casting. This is a starter build for raiding. It features Improved Faerie Fire to make up for the difficulty of obtaining spell hit in pre-raid gear. When beginning raiding your spell crit and mana regeneration will be low, making it difficult to go the distance in long boss fights, so maximum talents have been spent in mana conservation and regeneration talents like Moonglow, Dreamstate and Intensity. Once your gear has enough hit, crit, intellect and spirit on it, you can move points from Moonglow, Dreamstate and Intensity and place them in DPS talents like Celestial Focus, Improved Insect Swarm and Improved Moonfire and still maintain your mana over a long fight. Feral Combat Feral druids specialize in animal forms: cat form for physical damage and bear form/dire bear form for tanking. For information about feral druid tactics, see Druid tactics/Feral. Takes all the tanking talents, skips primal precision since it's more of a cat/DPS talent. Rend and Tear and Primal Gore are now essential for tanking because lacerate ticks critting grants Savage Defense. Takes all the talents that boost only Cat Form DPS. Feral Swiftness has been included to keep up with moving bosses. It is really the most optional Talent and can be used in survival instincts, nurturing instincts or improved leader of the pack. Similar to the build above, but leaves out Feral Aggression and adds Feral Charge, Nurturing Instinct, and Imp. Leader of the Pack. Also moves some points from Furor into Imp. Mark of the Wild for the extra stats. Gem for agility and gear for crit. Hit isn't needed as much for cats due to Primal Precision. This build is most ideal in pvp battlegrounds. Predatory Instincts may be substituted for Protector of the Pack if your emphasis is more on feral cat. However, the dynamic nature of Battlegrounds would probably need you to use the bear form quite often, so Protector of the Pack will probably come in handy (especially when combined with savage defense) A variation of the Battlegrounds build above that exchanges Protector of the Pack for Predatory Instincts and Brutal Impact for Improved Mark of the Wild. Improved Mark increases the resistances, attributes, and armor of you and your teammates (and since the team is likely not made up of two druids, this makes for a nice added bonus). I chose to remove brutal impact since this build's focus is on cat form, and you won't get to use pounce except maybe once or twice (or none if they have a rogue that out-stealths you). link title Restoration The restoration tree empowers the druid's heal over time spells (HOTS) and their other generic healing spells. For more information on restoration druid tactics, see Druid tactics/Restoration. A stock build for healing in raids. The 3.2 nourish build and the current 14/0/57 nourish healing builds focus on using Nourish clearly over recasting Regrowth. The basic principle is to apply hots on the classes taking high damage(tanks) and using nourish as a fast supporting heal. Base glyph selection is shown for the 3.2 and the current 3.1 talents builds however they could be changed to the druids preference. With all raid builds stretching to the Wild Regrowth talent it should be used on cool down for groups taking damage. The 3 points in Living Seed may be switched out for Natural Perfection or Revitalize talents depending on the number of druid heals in your raid situation or personal preference. A variation focused on using nourish for a more mana efficient heavy raid healing fights. The PvE viable PvP build, if you do both this is the build for you, it has all the essential PvE healing talents, with 5 points to spare for Nature's Grace and Nature's Reach. If you enjoy both aspects of the game and do not want to respec twice a day, this is the most ideal build. This build is the basic Feral(Survival)/Restoration hybrid. It takes basic healing talents up to Swiftmend and has natural perfection and combines them with high survival talents like Survival Instincts, Survival of the Fittest and Primal Tenecity. Has Feral Charge for Caster Survivability, Healer Interruption, general control, and good for helping a dps partner to catch their prey, also useful for escaping a melee dps (by charging into someone else). Now you have 4 extra points: Option 1) is Leader of the Pack (To buff physical dps partners) and 1 point into Improved LotP (for gaining access into the next teir, giving you and any partners some heals while you are not in caster form and mana regain to boot) and finally 2 points into Protector of the Pack, for increased Dire Bear Form survivability. Option 2) would be to put those points into 1xImproved Regrowth or 1xLiving Spirit, then putting 3xEmpowered Rejuvenation or 3xLiving Seed. Option 1 is for a huge increase in Dire Bear Form survivability, option 2 is for empowered healing, if you feel your heals are too weak pick option 2, if your heals are fine and you want more survivability go with option 1. While normal resto builds will heal in Improved Tree of Life and let their high armour absorb hits while healing themselves, this build takes the opposite approach. The general idea is to use Moonkin for protection while retaining the ability to cyclone and root. Once an attacker is CCed you can then heal in caster form without needing the protection of Tree form. External links ;General ;Moonkin The spreadsheet was an excellent resource for experimenting with gear and talent builds, and seeing how your theoretical dps and mana regeneration will work over fights of varying length. It is now sadly out of date, not updated for 3.0, but there is still a great deal of useful discussion in the thread. ;Resto Category:Druids Category:Druid talents Category:Guides Category:Talents